The “domus de janas” are the 61st Italian site inscribed on the World Heritage List, confirming Italy's supremacy as the nation with the largest number of UNESCO sites in the world. The World Heritage Committee, meeting in Paris at its 47th session, in fact decided today on the inscription of “Funerary Traditions in the Prehistory of Sardinia: the domus de janas”, recognizing the Exceptional Universal Value of the “domus de janas” or “fairy houses”, rock-cut tombs that testify to the funerary practices, religious beliefs and social evolution of Sardinian Neolithic communities. Characterized by articulated planimetric systems and symbolic decorations, they represent the most extensive manifestation of hypogean funerary architecture in the Western Mediterranean. The site consists of a series of components identified over the entire area of the island, particularly in the central-northern part, often grouped in necropolises likely associated with settlements and villages as well as places of worship. The origin of these prehistoric chamber tombs in Sardinia dates back to the Middle Neolithic I (5th millennium BC). Recent studies have demonstrated their use and continuous excavation during later periods, up to the dawn of the Nuragic civilization, including the reuse or renovation of pre-existing tombs. The nomination, promoted by the CeSIM Sardinia Association and the Network of Municipalities of the domus de janas, with the Municipality of Alghero as the lead, is based on Criterion III of the 1972 Convention and refers to the unique and exceptional testimony of a vanished cultural tradition related to the cult of the dead and beliefs about the afterlife developed by the island's prehistoric communities between the fifth and third millennia B.C. Through architectural variety, decorative complexity and planimetric evolution, the social organization, rituals and spiritual conception of the earliest communities settled on the island are documented by these hypogean tombs - like no other site in the Mediterranean - showing at the same time continuity and cultural transformations up to the beginning of the Bronze Age.